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Spock says, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” Is he right?
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My opinion: Yes, as long as one keeps firmly in mind the principle that the needs of the many are best served when the needs of individuals are not unduly trampled. After all, the many are nothing more than a whole lot of ones.
Consider a real-world example: eminent domain. Yeah, it’s a major hot button right now; I’ll get to that in a second. The traditional basis for this is that a community, through its governmental actors, determines that some collective need outweighs an individual’s rights. A city has to have some improvement (a bridge, or a train station, or a hospital, or whatever), and for various reasons the options for siting the improvement are limited. “We need to build this new bridge either here or here, and nowhere else.” As such, the central authority has to assume control of private property to proceed, and eminent domain allows the authority to overrule the owners’ objections in order to build the whatever-it-is. Clearly, in these situations, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
However: as practiced, the ability to take this option must be subject to certain restrictions, to prevent the authority from abusing its power. The city (or other collective) must make the decision in public, and demonstrate that it represents the shared will of the majority of the community; it can’t be a secret action by a small and insulated cadre. Also, the owner(s) must be fairly compensated for the taking of the property. In general, it must be a difficult course, with high hurdles; it cannot be undertaken casually.
Why? Because the needs of all are best served by ensuring that the needs of the many are balanced against the needs of the few or the one. Sometimes, the city really does need to build a bridge, and really does need to take private property to do it (needs of many > needs of one). But if the city is able to do this too easily, then even though in any given isolated circumstance the needs of the many are being served by the setting aside of the needs of the one, given enough time, a pattern emerges where every individual will be abused.
Lately, this balance has tipped, and eminent domain has become something of a dirty word, because cities, drifting into collusion and corruption with powerful interests, have been using the power to take property from one private individual and give it to another, for the purpose of building a shopping mall, or a ski resort, or some other for-profit enterprise. The city will naturally argue that the collective need of the community is being served by the project (attracting shoppers/tourists who spend money; also, creating jobs, and providing additional tax revenue; etc), and as such the original landowners just have to suck it up. This is creating two problems: the criteria for making the decision to apply eminent domain have been inexorably expanding, becoming more and more dubious; and second, as resentment and resistance increases, the city (or other authority) needs to resort to ever more heavy-handed tactics to push the decision to completion and hold down costs (such as condemning the property in question prior to claiming eminent domain). Individuals, more and more, are getting the shaft, as a legitimate application of authority morphs into an unrecognizable corruption of its original form.
So there’s your example, demonstrating the principle. The needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few, or the one; but the needs of the many, as a collective of individuals, are best served by guarding against the abuse of any single person or small subset.
I don’t expect individuals to sacrifice for the good of all…I expect people to have enlightened self interest myself. I never EXPECT others to sacrifice for me or mine…and that is where I diverge from what is obviously your and others philosophy on this point. It actually sickens me to take such a thing for granted in so cavalier a fashion.